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BluebellFlora
Posts: 7,110 Member
Update 30th August 2015 -
Thanks to @tmethei, @the11thmoon, @wendyp7 for detailing their graphics cards and posting how they fixed their issue. We finally now have a fix that works! I've written a really comprehensive guide on my website with detailed instructions for all affected Macs
On this very helpful forum for Mac users we already have Tremayne's fantastic stickied thread - "A Mac user's best friend..." which has links to every possible conceivable problem you are experiencing on your Mac in relation to The Sims 3. Believe me, we have seen all issues before, your problem isn't new and you are not the only one experiencing it. That post should be your very first port of call before you even think about starting your own thread.
In the last few months the most frequent post is that the user's Mac will not load the game at all past the loading splash screen. The Launcher opens (trust me, you should be extremely thankful that that even happens), the user presses the big Play symbol, the game loads the blue splash screen with the green plumbob then nothing. Zilch. Nada. Nani mo. Niente. Zero. Not a sausage.
I'm going to hazard a guess now that you're thinking "but my Mac is superduper and new and can do absolutely anything including the washing up and take the kids to school". Yes, yes it can do all those things but it can't play The Sims 3. Why? Because your super pretty, all singing, all dancing Mac has a graphics card inside it's pretty aluminium casing, attached to the beautifully designed logic board, which isn't supported in the game. In plain speak, the game doesn't know what to do so gives up.
If you have one of the following graphics cards (GPU) in your Mac, you have a problem:
Now, you have two options to try and get your game working:
Option 1 -
This is thanks to two wonderful Simmers who have taken the time to post how to possibly get your game working. It involves concentration and courage so pay attention! You must understand though that this fix doesn't appear to be working for everyone:
Option 2 -
Try just running the base game with no Expansion or Stuff packs, patched up to date, 1.67.
And one more thing, please, please, please, PLEASE don't moan about it not working. We all know how awful it must be for you but here are the steps for you to try and get the game working on your Mac. EA aren't going to release a patch to miraculously fix this. The Sims 3 finished when the last Expansion Pack, Into The Future, was released in October 2013. The last patch, 1.67, was released in January 2014. No one else can do this but you, there is no magic fix. You are all on your own.
I highly recommend you also read Caspin's very helpful thread and WinMacSims3's equally helpful thread. Yes, we have an overload of threads on this issue but us helpers hope that by saturating the Mac forum with posts about the same thing but with different titles, it may stop the same threads being posted over and over and over again. Capisce?
If you can add anything constructive to this thread then it would be most welcome
@Tremayne4260 @caspinwall @igazor @tamalinn @Ashpeef @WinMacSims3
Thanks to @tmethei, @the11thmoon, @wendyp7 for detailing their graphics cards and posting how they fixed their issue. We finally now have a fix that works! I've written a really comprehensive guide on my website with detailed instructions for all affected Macs
On this very helpful forum for Mac users we already have Tremayne's fantastic stickied thread - "A Mac user's best friend..." which has links to every possible conceivable problem you are experiencing on your Mac in relation to The Sims 3. Believe me, we have seen all issues before, your problem isn't new and you are not the only one experiencing it. That post should be your very first port of call before you even think about starting your own thread.
In the last few months the most frequent post is that the user's Mac will not load the game at all past the loading splash screen. The Launcher opens (trust me, you should be extremely thankful that that even happens), the user presses the big Play symbol, the game loads the blue splash screen with the green plumbob then nothing. Zilch. Nada. Nani mo. Niente. Zero. Not a sausage.
I'm going to hazard a guess now that you're thinking "but my Mac is superduper and new and can do absolutely anything including the washing up and take the kids to school". Yes, yes it can do all those things but it can't play The Sims 3. Why? Because your super pretty, all singing, all dancing Mac has a graphics card inside it's pretty aluminium casing, attached to the beautifully designed logic board, which isn't supported in the game. In plain speak, the game doesn't know what to do so gives up.
If you have one of the following graphics cards (GPU) in your Mac, you have a problem:
- Intel Iris and Iris Pro - found in the following Macs:
- All Late 2013 Retina 13" MacBook Pros and subsequent models
- Entry level (cheapest) Late 2013 Retina 15" MacBook Pro and subsequent models
- Late 2014 mid (2.6 Ghz) and higher (2.8 Ghz) spec. Mac mini
- Entry level (cheapest) Late 2013 21" iMac
- Intel HD 6000 - found in the following Macs:
- Early 2015 11" MacBook Air
- Early 2015 13" MacBook Air
- AMD Radeon R9 M370X - found in the following Mac:
- High spec. (most expensive) Mid 2015 Retina 15" MacBook Pro
- : - : - : -
Now, you have two options to try and get your game working:
Option 1 -
This is thanks to two wonderful Simmers who have taken the time to post how to possibly get your game working. It involves concentration and courage so pay attention! You must understand though that this fix doesn't appear to be working for everyone:
- Read this thread by @tmethei. It gives extremely clear and concise instructions on where to find the relevant files that you have to change for the game to recognise your graphics card. His instructions are for the Intel Iris Pro.
- If you have the AMD Radeon R9 M370X read this post and this post by @the11thmoon. They used tmethei's instructions but substituted Intel Iris for their AMD Radeon GPU.
- If you have the Intel HD 6000..... well, I'm afraid I don't have the exact line you need to add to the GraphicsCards.sgr file as no one with this GPU has bothered trying yet. You could always be the first and post your success story here to share with others.
Option 2 -
Try just running the base game with no Expansion or Stuff packs, patched up to date, 1.67.
- : - : - : -
And one more thing, please, please, please, PLEASE don't moan about it not working. We all know how awful it must be for you but here are the steps for you to try and get the game working on your Mac. EA aren't going to release a patch to miraculously fix this. The Sims 3 finished when the last Expansion Pack, Into The Future, was released in October 2013. The last patch, 1.67, was released in January 2014. No one else can do this but you, there is no magic fix. You are all on your own.
I highly recommend you also read Caspin's very helpful thread and WinMacSims3's equally helpful thread. Yes, we have an overload of threads on this issue but us helpers hope that by saturating the Mac forum with posts about the same thing but with different titles, it may stop the same threads being posted over and over and over again. Capisce?
If you can add anything constructive to this thread then it would be most welcome
@Tremayne4260 @caspinwall @igazor @tamalinn @Ashpeef @WinMacSims3
Post edited by BluebellFlora on
2
Comments
If you knew me you probably wouldn't think so but thanks!
All I do is consolidate information and try and make people aware of issues and how they can try and fix them themselves. We all have to learn somehow.
I really wish someone with the MBA would try the workaround.....
And to add insult to injury for Mac users, EA hasn't bothered to update The Sims 3 to support Intel Iris so people who have Macs (particularity Retina MacBook Pro computers) manufactured in 2013 are unable to play the game without workarounds. Although The Sims 2 on Mac and The Sims 4 were later patched to support Intel Iris/Iris Pro, The Sims 3 remains as the only game incompatible with it. In addition, TS3 has problems with other GPUs and while a workaround is possible, EA won't likely fix it.
Hopefully this could be helpful for users who want to play TS3 on a Mac as well as those who doesn't want TS4.
I forgot to add that. Aspyr released the Mac version of TS2 and The Sims 2 Super Collection. Aspyr patched the Super Collection to support Iris and other newer graphics including the AMD FirePro used in the Mac Pros. However, keep in mind that only applies to the Mac version, the Windows version from EA has never been updated to detect newer cards causing glitches that were probably not present in the Super Collection or older PCs.
When i open the sims 3 the plumblob with a 3 shows up and it just stays there, It has worked before, but now it just is frozen. Do you know anything i can do?
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Nope. It's up to those of you with the problem to try and enter your details into the GraphicsCards.sgr file.
If anybody else does what? Updates the file? That's the sole possible solution, so you can see that lots of folks have already tried it. If you're concerned about your computer skills, make a copy of the file, put the original somewhere safe, and update the copied file. If it works, you can delete the original file, and if it doesn't, then you still have the original file.